New York , U.S.A. —  This week, victims of the doomed Costa Concordia Cruise Ship that capsized off the Italian coast in January filed a new Complaint against Miami headquartered Carnival Corp., the builder of the Costa Concordia, for product liability, against Carnival’s Miami-based architect for defective ship design and against Carnival for a pattern and practice of concealing and/or delaying notification of life threatening situations to passengers on board their cruise ships, amongst other causes of action. Another claim, alleging wrongful death on behalf of several other parties, is to be filed shortly.

The suit alleges that Carnival was aware that the ship’s hull design and power systems were defective. In February 2010 the hull of Carnival’s Costa Europa was punctured against a dock in Egypt creating a small hole, roughly 1/30th (6 feet) the size of the hole in the Costa Concordia’s hull, yet that ship flooded and listed severely at the cost of multiple lives. To date, the company refuses to publicly release the incident report that relates to the Europa accident.

In November 2010, Concordia’s sister ship the Carnival Splendor caught fire and was stranded off the coast of Mexico due to a catastrophic failure of a generator in one of the engine rooms. Splendor’s second generator, located in another engine room, should have kicked in but failed to work. At the time, Carnival Cruise Lines’ CEO Gerry Cahill was quoted in Travel Weekly: “Having two engine rooms like we do is pretty much the norm in the cruise industry”.

Cahill added that Carnival had determined that “there are certain things that we can do to increase the effectiveness of that redundancy.” Cahill also said that these lessons would likely be applied to Carnival’s sister brands in the Carnival Corp. group, but the Concordia was plagued by multiple electrical failures after the crash, causing tremendous loss of life and property, personal injury and terror for those on board.

Indeed, as Marc Jay Bern of Napoli Bern Ripka Shkolnik, LLP, co-lead attorney along with Mitchell Proner of Proner & Proner, representing Costa Concordia victims recently noted, “No one got off the Concordia unscathed. Even those who survived and avoided serious physical injuries will never be the same after the horror they lived through. These people trusted a well-known cruise industry brand and had every reason to believe they were in responsible and experienced hands but unfortunately that proved to be anything but the truth.”

Law firms Napoli Bern Ripka Shkolnik & Associates, LLP (with offices in New York and Florida) and New York-based Proner & Proner, along with the Italian firm CODACONS, are representing the plaintiffs in their litigation against the Carnival Group and the other responsible parties. At least $2 million dollars in compensation per passenger is sought and attorneys plan to request $590 million dollars in punitive damages.

The action, filed in State Court before the Florida Circuit Court (11th Judicial Circuit) in Miami-Dade County, Florida is against Carnival Corporation, Carnival Corporation & PLC, Costa Cruise Lines, Inc. and Costa Crociere SPA, are all registered in the State of Florida and face state law claims for Maritime Negligence, Gross Negligence, Negligence – Product Defect as to Carnival Corp., Professional Negligence of the Ship’s Architect, Intentional Failure to Warn, Intentional Failure to Abandon Ship, Intentional Failure to Notify Authorities, Corporate Pattern and Practice of failure to warn, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, Negligent Retention (by the Cruise Line of Captain Schettino), Fraudulent Misrepresentation and Fraudulent Inducement.

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On Saturday, lawyers representing the survivors of the wrecked Costa Concordia demanded that new drug tests be taken by Captain Francesco Schettino, after traces of cocaine were found on a sample of his hair.

According to MSNBC, Codacons, an Italian consumer protection group, said that traces of cocaine were found not only on the hair sample of the captain, but also in an envelope containing it and that it would be very unlikely for the drug to not appear in the captain’s urine or hair samples. Thus on Friday, Codacons ordered new testing, in order to confirm whether the results were valid or not.

Marcello Chiarotti, the forensic medical expert who carried out the toxicology test said, “the modest trace of cocaine was a marginal problem that absolutely doesn’t invalidate the results of the analysis.” Confidently, according to ANSA, he added, “We will be able to clear this problem up later; those who work in our field know that there can be problems like this.” Mr. Chiarotti is solid about the results and will hand them in to the prosecutors next week.

Forty-two hundred passengers and crew were on board when the cruise liner crashed into a reef a few hours after leaving an Italian port. The Associated Press reported that the boat started to tip over onto its side, leading passengers to panic and look for lifeboats. Sadly, evacuation was only ordered an hour after the incident, causing some passengers to jump overboard and swim to Giglio when a lot of lifeboats could not be used due to Concordia’s tilt. Thirty-two people have been reported dead and fifteen missing.

According to Reuters, several survivors of the cruise liner tragedy joined a Florida lawsuit accusing the ship’s owners of negligence and fraud.  They asked for “$78 million in compensatory damages and at least $450 million in punitive damages, plus interest and attorney costs.”

“Plaintiffs found themselves in a listing, capsizing, sinking vessel without communication, direction, or help from the captain and misdirection from the crew from approximately 9:45 P.M. to approximately 11 P.M. and were left to fend for themselves,” the lawsuit said.

In the hopes that more bodies may be found, people have not stopped searching sections of the wreckage. Marc Jay Bern, a senior partner in one of the law firms that filed the suit said, “Only one cruise ship has gone down in over 100 years, the Titanic. Now the Costa Concordia will live in infamy with it.”

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Friday’s cruise ship tragedy resulted in the death of 11 passengers and left 23 missing. The luxurious Italian cruiser with more than 4,200 people on board, partially sank off the Italian coast due to human errors by Captain Francesco Schettino, who had taken an “unapproved, unauthorized” route.

Peter Wild, a cruise industry consultant and former navigating officer said, “Human error or navigational error is a real possibility; those are the two most likely causes in general.” The ship’s captain was arrested on Saturday and according to CNN News, chief prosecutor Francesco Verusio said, “Capt. Francesco Schettino is under arrest and may face charges that include manslaughter, shipwreck, and abandoning a ship when passengers were still on board.”

USA Today reported that a coast guard official said, the exact details of the incident were still not clear; however, the first alarm rang at around 10:30 pm, almost three hours after the Concordia had started its journey from Civitavecchia’s port to its first destination, Savona, in northwestern Italy.

A loud bang was the first hint that something wasn’t right. “We were having supper when the lights suddenly went out, we heard a boom and a groaning noise, and the entire cutlery fell on the floor.” Luciano Castro told Italy’s Ansa news agency.

According to BBC News, the passengers were told that the ship was merely facing some electricity problems. However, Fabio Costa, the cruise ship shop worker, said, people started to panic in desperation when they realized that something was awfully wrong.

“Everybody was trying to get on the boats at the same time. When people had to get on the lifeboats they were pushing each other. It was a bit chaotic. We were trying to keep passengers calm but it was just impossible. Nobody knew what was going on,” Elizabeth Nanni of the Isola del Giglio Tourist Information described.

In a statement released on Sunday, Costa Cruises said, “We comply very strictly with all safety regulations and our personnel are committed, first and foremost, to guest safety and security. All crew members are trained in basic safety and emergency management, and their skills are tested periodically.” However, the survivors of the disaster had a different opinion. Vivian Safer, a passenger said, “There wasn’t anybody to help you; I mean, the passengers were loading the lifeboats by themselves.”

Michael Crye, executive vice president of the Cruise Line International Association believes that Costa Concordia had experienced a similar damage to that of Titanic. However, he said, “It’s too soon to know whether any new regulations are needed to avoid a disaster like this.”

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